Purifying Light
by SnowFallsDown
Summary: This is an alternative to what happened when Aang spiritbended Ozai. The Phoenix King comes face to face with the Avatar Spirit and all of his sins. Can he survive?


**I don't not own Avatar: the last airbender**

Ozai found himself in an expanse of white. He was alone save for a beautiful person with long yellow hair and deep black eyes. He could not be sure if it was man or woman; the voluminous white robe revealed nothing. The self-proclaimed phoenix king could, however, demand of it.

"Where am I? Who are you? I demand you tell me at once."

The voice that answered sounded more like a zephyr than spoken word. "You need not demand anything of me. I am the Avatar."

"Liar! The Avatar is child. A small pathetic child."

"That child is Aang, my current incarnation or perhaps host is a better word. I am spirit of the Avatar that is passed down."

Ozai narrowed his eyes and stared, "So you are the core of Avatars? All the Avatars."

It nodded, "That is a fair statement, yes."

The firebender grinned maliciously. He swung his arms in circles around his body, pulling his chi apart. He pointed a pair of fingers at the spirit and released the mass of energy. "Then die!" he spat.

The lighting wrapped around it and it made no sign of pain or fear. The bolts faded and revealed the spirit to be unharmed. Ozai could only stare dumbly.

"I have not answered you other question yet," the Avatar said. "Where you are is a little more complicated. My current incarnation has chosen a risky gamble. He has elected a duel of wills, and this place exists between where his mind and your mind meet."

Ozai did not fully understand but he liked the sound of it. "A duel, huh? Fine. Bring the brat out."

The Avatar shook its head. "This is not a duel of violence, but of souls and wills. Whoever has the stronger soul will be the winner."

"And if I win?"

The spirit looked almost thoughtful for a moment, "A child like Aang would either die or be driven mad. The outcomes of such duels are…difficult to predict."

The feral smile returned to his face, "Then lets us begin, where is he?"

"I represent him here, although he would suffer the loss. And began we shall."

Colors bloomed in vast emptiness. They melded and moved and blurred. What was once fluid became shapes, slowly gaining definition. Soon enough, Ozai could see the courtyard of the palace. In it, there seemed to be two people. A teen boy and a young man. The older one was walking away and being followed by the younger. It took him sometime to recognize his older brother looking so young, and even longer to recognize his own childhood self.

They were arguing.

"Come back and fight me!" said his younger self.

"I will not, there is no point in fighting someone so far above you, brother," replied the younger Iroh.

Young Ozai persisted, "Agni Kai! I challenge you to an Agni Kai!"

Iroh dropped his shoulders, sighed and turned. He walked right up to his brother. "I refuse."

"Coward. You always run from fighting."

"Only when it is senseless. I am happy to train you Ozai, but you too concerned with besting me and not enough with besting yourself."

"What does that even mean!"

The world froze. The young Ozai yelling his rage and Iroh wearing a face of frustrated patience. The Avatar walked from behind Iroh. "You have never liked your brother."

"He was weak," Ozai snarled.

"You have never bested him."

"Only because he refused to fight."

"There is more to this hate," The spirit stared at him, waiting. "This duel will not continue until you admit this."

Ozai crossed his arms in defiance. He looked away from it and into his brother's face. It was smug as always, like he knew a thousand more things than Ozai ever could. Iroh's eyes burned so dimly and slightly it was a wonder he could summon fire at all. He felt something like an itch, a minor twinge somewhere deep in his chest. He ignored it. But something…something in his brother's expression loosened his tongue.

"He was coddled."

"How so?"

"He was the favorite, always was. Father and Mother were always so proud of Iroh. He was always surrounded by friends, fans and women. Oh, the women would just swoon around him! He would smile and recite a line of poetry and they would lift their skirts. Pathetic. Half the bastards in Capital City are probably his. Even the army adored him, their Dragon of the west."

"Was their adoration misplaced?"

"Of course it was. He was weak. He clung to proverbs and tea. He showed mercy to his enemy. And he coddled Lu Ten. And look what all this got him! The mighty prince lost Ba Sing Sae, lost the throne and his beloved son in long dead."

The Avatar's eyes probed deeper, "And you have done better?"

"Better? By time this farce of duel is over, I will be ruler of the entire world! True, Zuko was spoiled by his mother's bleeding heart, but Azula. Azula is a magnificent weapon. Give me a few more years and she will unstoppable." He was gloating openly now, reveling in victories not yet won.

"You are mistaken."

"What?"

"Zuko despises you. He has joined your enemies and you yourself failed to kill him. Azula's mind has broken, and quite probably beyond repair."

"What are you talking about?"

The spirit waved its hand and the world blurred. Then shifted and came back into focus. The place was the same, though it looked more like the wreckage of a battlefield than before. It was ringed by burnt and burning buildings. Azula was there, chained to a grate. She was weeping and spitting fire, writhing and rolling on the ground.

"This is what is happening now."

Ozai looked on his daughter in disgust, "Pathetic. Ursa has given me two worthless children."

"I do not know about that, look other there."

He turned and followed her gaze. In the middle of the courtyard was the waterbending girl was bent over his son. The faintly glowing water in her hands did little to hide massive burn his son had received. It looked like someone has tried to burn a hole through him, lighting no doubt. The waterbending girl was crying.

"Ha!" Ozai laughed, "At least Azula was useful to rid me of her brother."

The Avatar knelt down and gently cradled Zuko's head. "He will not die. The girl has the strength to save him, and he has the strength to stay."

The firebender snorted.

The spirit caressed the scar on Zuko's face, "You gave him this."

"He deserved it. He had no right to speak out in that meeting."

"Perhaps, but I am far more interested in the punishment than the crime."

"The punishment was an Agni Kai," He corrected. "But he was too cowardly and weak to fight. That is why I marked him."

"Interesting, to teach him that showing weakness and asking for mercy is only an invitation to pain."

"Exactly. Pity the boy never learned," Ozai he shook his head, "He never had the firebending talent anyway."

The avatar spirit stood, "He challenged his sister to a duel and won."

"Laughable. If he won than how is he lying there half dead? What did try to offer his dear sister mercy?"

"No, Azula defied the rules and sent lighting towards the girl. Zuko blocked it and took the blow himself."

Ozai laughed and laughed so hard he had to hold his sides. "That dumb bastard. Protecting some water tribe wench! He really has learned nothing."

A small smile grew on the spirit's face. "Then why has your chosen Fire Lord been defeated and dethroned. And your disowned son survived and to be crowned if you do not survive."

The man growled at the apparition, "Get on with it! I need to be done with this and dispose of my children." The itching had grown and somehow felt very wrong, like a wound.

For the first time, the Avatar looked almost angry. "You will listen. Azula is defeated. Iroh has taken Ba Sing Sae. Your fleet of airships has been halted. And you have nearly been bested by a little boy. What does that tell you."

Ozai was furious, but he said nothing. It was wrong. It was all wrong. It made no sense. All of his plans had failed, toppled by these weak and insignificant fools. It couldn't be possible, but it was. He was cheated somehow.

"How," he demanded. "How did this happen!"

"Because you are alone."

"I had an army, an entire nation behind me!"

"Did a single one try to help you fight Aang?"

"None of his friends were there either."

"His allies were few and needed elsewhere, yours were many."

"Get to point!"

The Avatar crossed its arms, "Very well. It is the same reason you hated Iroh so much. They have friends. People would fight to death for them because they love them. Because they love them. You have no friends, no family. Only tools. Tools require force to be used and care nothing for the hand that wields them."

He felt like he had been struck. It was a weakness, he knew that. But then why had he lost to people who were so full of that same weakness. The wound grew to an empty hole in his chest. It hurt.

"Yet you were loved, if only briefly. Do you remember?"

The world changed again. Around him was the Prince's bedchamber. Lying in bed, wrapped in a silk sheet was Ursa, young and beautiful. The cover could not hide her round belly, probably Zuko he mused.

The Avatar asked him, "Will you admit to loving her?"

His voice came out hoarse, "Yes."

The Avatar waited and said nothing.

"She was mine. I found her, a minor noble's daughter. She had the most wonderful eyes. She spoke so softly and warmly. But there was strength in her, like a mountain. I knew she would be a grand queen and give me strong children. I was wrong." Over the course of the words, he had quietly walked to her side. He knelt and stared into her sleeping face. Fingertips hovered just above her cheek before withdrawing.

His voice turned hard and bitter. "She failed me."

"How?" the spirit asked gently.

"She gave me a weak son, barely survived his birth. Then she coddled him, made him soft, made him weak."

"And her last betrayal?"

He stood and glared at the Avatar, hate and pain in his eyes. "She chose him over me. That weak and wretched boy. When Father refused to see the logic in me replacing Iroh as Crown Prince, he ordered my son's death. The senile old fool didn't see that I could less about such a pathetic child. Ursa refused, even when I promised her more children. I promised her the world! She betrayed me. She cared more about that brat than me."

"Did she come up with the plan or you?"

"Me, of course. She was too soft-hearted to dare dream of such a thing. She killed the old fool and I banished her." He was looking at Ursa again, perhaps wistfully.

"No, you didn't."

Ozai felt the hole in him growing, filling him with nothingness, and turned back to the spirit, "What?"

"I do not abide lies, even ones we tell are ourselves."

The bed and Ursa disappeared. Ozai's old office formed out of the swirling colors this time. A slightly younger Ozai was writing a forged proclamation, stating his ascendency over his brother. For some reason, Ozai felt afraid. He knew deep down in that expanding void that this was something he did not want to see. Then Ursa walked in.

The prince didn't look up. "Is it done."

Ursa was flustered, her hair a mess, her eyes bloodshot. "The poison will kill him before he wakes. It will be peaceful, like a morphine overdose."

The younger Ozai showed no appearance of caring. He looked up at her. "You remember the last part of our bargain?"

"Of course," she snapped at him.

"Then leave."

Ursa looked like she was going to say something more, or perhaps yell at him, but she didn't. She almost ran out of the room.

"Daisuke," called the prince.

A figure melded out of from the shadows in a corner of the room. "Yes, your highness."

"My wife has decided to leave me. Make sure she does not make it to her boat."

The assassin bowed, and disappeared. Younger Ozai went back to his forgery. Then it all faded into a white expanse.

"You are lying!" cried Ozai.

"By my nature, I am incapable," replied the Avatar calmly. "You killed her, the love of your life. No, you were too cowardly and had someone else do it for you."

"Impossible!," Ozai fell to his knees. "No, no, no." He tried to deny it, but the memory of it all found him again. The agreement. The order to Daisuke. Daisuke returning with a bloody blade. Even the doctored story of the body of dead prostitute being found by the docks. He did it. He truly did.

It hurt to think of her being dead. He panted and heaved. It hurt and refused to stop.

The spirit of the Avatars was before him. "You are alone, Ozai. How does it feel?"

The man clutched at his bare chest, at the emptiness inside. He felt like a hollow sell, absolutely gutted. Suddenly, it was like all the broken pieces fell into place. He understood. He understood why Iroh was beloved more than him. He understood why Ursa would choose their son over than him. He understood why he lost.

He was alone. Empty.

It only made the pain worse. He cried. He sobbed. And he pleaded, "Make it stop, please make it stop."

The Avatar placed a hand on his head, "Do you surrender?"

"I do."

In the waking world, Aang watched in resigned horror as the Phoenix King faded to dust and blew away with the wind. The young monk felt sorrow, but not guilt. He had watched the trials of Ozai and knew that he didn't kill the man. Ozai had done it all himself. Aang just showed him the light.

He bowed, "I'm sorry."

Thus ended the life of the Phoenix King, Ozai the Usurper. Ozai the Unloved.


End file.
